For many years, while I was actively writing for the Greenville News, it wasn’t unusual for groups to call wanting to find an after-dinner speaker. I would jump at the chance, because there was always the chance to pick up a few good stories. I never will forget when Jack Smith with the Professional Construction […]

When my father, Jesse Reese Fant Jr., graduated from Pendleton High School, he suddenly found himself sort of spinning in space. He lived in LaFrance, SC, where the only possible job opportunity was the textile mill the small community surrounded. The mill was not hiring. He had no transportation to try for a job in […]

Wikipedia calls a confidence trick (con game) an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence. Someone said something about a con game not long ago and it rang a bell in my brain. I’ve been trying ever since to determine my favorite con game and confidence man, and the inner, hands […]

Wednesday started out like most days down here on Route 4, Piedmont. I had hoped and prayed that if the day couldn’t improve a great deal, at least let it begin a lot closer to daybreak. That didn’t happen. It’s 5 o’clock am in the morning before the sun comes up, or at least where […]

Take a few minutes today and watch the news. Any news. Depressing, isn’t it. If you watch the noon news, you are going to find out who got fired at the White House, and what time rain is expected either north or south of the I-85 weather barrier. Actually, it’s worse than depressing. It’s downright disgusting. What this world […]

The Yarn of the Yarnspinner

I am, technically, Jesse Reese Fant III, but all of the Reese Fant’s before me have died, and the couple born since me are still young, so I just go by Reese Fant.

I was born and raised in Anderson, South Carolina. I entered this world on June 30, 1943, during the only complete blackout Anderson County had during World War II.

My father swam out of the North Atlantic Ocean a couple of times thanks to Nazi torpedo’s, came home and went into politics, serving two terms in the House of Representatives. I was 11 years old before I realized not every kid had a house full of lawyers every night. My parents gave me the best Anderson Public School education money could buy, including two years in the 12th grade where I was obviously held back as a role model for younger students.

Then I went to Anderson College, where I stayed until the Dean of Men just said, point blank, “You only lack one course graduating and you have avoided taking it for over a year now. You will graduate in June…”

I did, too. I then married the love of my life and she was working at Easley Baptist Hospital as an x-ray tech while I attended Clemson. Then one day she became suddenly pregnant. It was sudden, too. One day she wasn’t. Next day she was. Since her condition prevented her working, we moved to Route 4, Piedmont, where she took care of her diabetic-blind father so her mom could go to work at Ellen-Woodside Elementary.

I went to work.

After several years of dead-end jobs where I was not and would never be happy, I bet a few bucks on a football game, and couldn’t find the score.

On Monday morning, I called the Greenville News and when the sports department answered I said, “I know you are fighting a deadline, but I need a football score.”

They asked what I knew about deadlines and I explained I had started working at the Anderson Independent as a child, putting the comics in the Sunday papers. Then I had gone on to have a half-dozen jobs for the newspaper.

The man asked, “Is this Reese Fant?”

I admitted it. He said they were looking for a sports writer, the pay was a good bit more than I was making, and I agreed to interview.

I turned around and told my boss at the time, “I am sick and want to go home”. He said I was not sick. I agreed, and said I wasn’t going home either.

I interviewed, “covered” a basketball game that night, and took the story in before daylight the next morning. The sports editor read the first two graphs, and I had the job.

I went from sports writer to columnist for the afternoon paper, The Greenville Piedmont, as “The Yarnspinner” for several years until the newspaper changed my byline from The Yarnspinner to Reese Fant.

All in all I worked for the Greenville News for 33 years, then I took early retirement at 58 due to illness…I got sick of where newspapers were going.

Now Bryan Ramey, ole Double Aught, has agreed that I can write blogs for this website in preparation for writing a book. I got old writing this “short” bio, so now I am THE OLD YARNSPINNER.

One last thing, me and Double Aught have a lot in common – and racing and greasy food top that list – but the ironic thing is: his first public job was a paperboy for the Greenville Piedmont when he was 12 years old and in the 6th grade. And I took it as high praise when he told me that he used to save a paper out of his bag to read my stuff on the days my column ran way back then.

SPARTANBURG

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